


Pertinacity

by Pythia (Mythichistorian)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythichistorian/pseuds/Pythia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pertinacity: <i> The quality or state of being pertinacious - holding tenaciously to a purpose, belief, opinion, or course of action. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Pertinacity

He puts his foot down.

She takes off with a smile, seizing her life and refusing to accept his limitations on it.

"Beep me if the apocalypse comes," she jests, and he has to let her go, powerless to prevent her. He should be enforcing his orders, making her obey – but he is already entangled, enchanted by her, recognising her stubbornness, her independence of spirit.

He puts his foot down.

He tells her she doesn’t have to face her destiny. That he intends to go in her place – and she knocks him out and goes anyway.

She dies that night, and is brought back, restored by the friends she isn’t supposed to have. She breaks so many rules; he insists, she dismisses, and sometimes he’s right and sometimes she is.

Truth is he can deny her nothing. But he does his best.

He puts his foot down.

She’s an adult and doesn’t need him to watch over her every minute of every day. He gives her her freedom and she stands there and stares at him as if she can’t believe her ears.

He knows he was wrong as soon as she turns and walks away. He reels from the damage for almost a year, aching from self inflicted blows, watching her from a distance, feeling her silently push him away.

In the end it’s not apology they find to offer each other. It’s understanding and remorse.

They hug, they promise ‘never again’ and then together they make magic.

He puts his foot down.

He’s hurt and hurting, she’s out of options and there is a hellgod threatening the world. His words are harsh, recognising what needs to be done, and she refutes them. She will not accept his solution and he can see the distrust in her eyes as they head into the final confrontation.

In the end they are both right; he takes the life of an innocent and she offers up her own in her sister’s place.

Together they save the world. Again.

He puts his foot down.

She came back and he came back, and he’d found dependence where there had once been strength, apathy where there had once been confidence. It breaks his heart to walk away, but he has too.

He knows she cannot protect the world if she’s relying on him to protect her from it.

He puts his foot down.

The witch stamps back, and she strikes with fire and fury. He fights to save her soul and she fights to deny it. In the end she takes the gift he’s brought her, and this time it’s someone else’s stubbornness that saves the world.

But that’s just as it should be – although he’s rather surprised to find he’s survived the experience.

He puts his foot down.

She refuses to listen, once again. Her heart tells her to trust a monster, and she turns away from reason, putting her faith in her own judgement. His own faith falters – and he falls into conspiracy, betraying the trust she’s no longer willing to share with him.

It’s her turn to put her foot down. And slam the door in his face.

It hurts more than leaving her ever did.

They all put their foot down.

She is denied by those who love her, because they love her. The blood caked shell of her battle hardened indifference has to be ripped away to reveal the strength of heart that lies beneath. She lies weeping in a dead man’s arms and finally remembers the truth she confronted so long ago. That _she_ is the one chosen to save the world.

She puts her foot down.

She wins the scythe, she defeats the First Evil’s emissary, and she leads the battle into hell. He _has_ taught her everything she needs to know. She is the Slayer. And she knows she’s going to win.

He’s at the wheel of the bus. A bus full of hyped up slayers, urging him to go faster, relying on him to get them away before hell swallows them up. There’s a man bleeding in the aisle beside him and an exhausted witch muttering prayers to the goddess somewhere in the background. He has one eye on the road ahead and one on the image in the wing mirror.

He’s not really watching where he’s going.

He’s watching _her._

Watching the agile figure that races in their wake, leaping from roof to roof. Devastation follows her, the earth cracking open, the buildings crumbling to dust. She picks up her pace. He slows, just a little.

There is a soft thump, the sound of a body landing safely on the roof.

He smiles - and puts his foot down.


End file.
